THE LATEST LINE: SOUTHEAST TEAMS TAKE SOME SHOTS

It has certainly been an eventful sports-news week in Cape Girardeau as the two highest-profile athletic teams at Southeast Missouri State University took a couple of major hits just days apart.

On Tuesday, SEMO officials announced that they had received a letter of official inquiry from the NCAA in regard to allegations concerning the men's basketball program.

According to the university, the letter revealed the NCAA had concluded its preliminary inquiry and found that the case appears to be major in nature and warrants an official inquiry into a number of allegations.

That, no matter how you try to slice it, is not good news.

Then on Friday, SEMO head football coach John Mumford announced that highly-touted transfer quarterback Heath Graham had left school to return to his home town of Stringer, Miss., partly because of another concussion but more to be near his ailing sister, who is critically ill.

From a pure sports standpoint, Graham leaving may or may not be all that bad, depending on how you look at it, because he really hadn't made much of an impact with the Indians over the first three games of the season, although anybody with a heart must surely wish he and his family well during their time of crisis.

As for basketball, everything is still really foggy. Former coach Ron Shumate, who was relieved of his duties after the 1996-97 season because of the NCAA investigation, said after his dismissal several months ago that he ran "the cleanest program in America."

Other than rumors that have been flying around for months, we still really have no idea what the allegations concern. But this latest letter means that, even though the NCAA process could still take quite a while to sort itself out, it's at least moving along at some kind of pace.

Regarding football, now the job of leading SEMO's offense is 100 percent in the hands of Justin Martini, who had been playing a lot anyway and started 10 out of 11 games last season.

Although Graham's departure leaves SEMO shaky in the depth department -- either Jeff Shaw, a former QB and now a wide receiver, or promising but untested freshman Bobby Brune are next in line -- Martini seems to have enough respect from his teammates and enough of a grasp of the offense to more than do the job, providing the rest of the offense does its job.

Time will ultimately tell the story of both situations.

* With Cape Central's surprisingly lopsided 29-6 loss to Marshall County (Ky.) Friday night, Jackson stands alone as the only undefeated football team in the area thanks to the Indians 34-7 cruise past Graves County (Ky.).

* Former Jackson High all-state standout Kit Eifert is in his second season as the starting left tackle for Washington University's nationally-ranked NCAA Division III football team.

Eifert, a 6-foot-2, 270-pound junior, is majoring in psychology at the academically renowned St. Louis institution.

~Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian